FBI takes lead in search for missing Nelson County girl (with video)

Despite some similarities in the cases, investigators say there is no current information tying the disappearance of a Nelson County girl to the death of Roanoke County college student Morgan Harrington.

Alexis Tiara Murphy, 17, of Shipman was last seen Saturday when she left in her car, planning to get hair extensions for her senior portrait, her family has said.

On Tuesday evening, FBI agents, Albemarle County police and Nelson County sheriff's deputies surrounded a white Nissan Maxima with license plates that matched Murphy's car.

The vehicle was found in the parking lot of a movie theater on U.S. 29 in Albemarle County, about 13 miles north of where Harrington’s body was found in a remote farm field in 2010.

Though the FBI is the lead agency in Murphy’s disappearance, a Virginia State Police spokeswoman said there’s no current information to connect the two cases.

“We have no evidence at this time to make any connection between the two cases,” Corinne Geller said Wednesday .

Harrington, 20, disappeared on Oct. 17, 2009, while attending a Metallica concert at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville. The Virginia Tech student’s death remains unsolved.

In July 2010, state police said Harrington’s case was forensically linked to a 2005 abduction and sexual assault in Fairfax involving a 26-year-old woman.

No arrests have been made in either case.